Case StudyO’NEILL VINTNERS & DISTILLERS

THE CHALLENGE

A well-known vintner & distillery was in need of a new responsive website design that was updated to match their current business goals and brand. They wanted their new site to be reflective of what they value as a company, as winemakers, and as experts in the industry. They also needed a simple and intuitive navigation system so consumers, wholesalers, and vendors could easily find and shop their wide arrays of products. They also had back-end architectural problems with their old platform and needed a team to help easily integrate and expand their online capabilities.

THE FINAL SOLUTION

We created two completely different concepts for O’Neill to choose from. The first concept was a safer approach that followed their branded presentations more closely. The second concept pushed them a bit further by using a more mobile-friendly navigation and mixing in some elegance and sexiness to their typical earthy tones. The client was extremely happy with the outcome and also hired us to create a video for the homepage hero image to bring even more life to the concept. We created an extremely easy-to-use and over-simplified navigational system, stripping back several hard-to-find pages from their current structure. This allows their users to easily explore and find what they’re looking for while in adherently, being immersed in the brand story. We used large and dramatic images to bring users up close and personal with how the wine and spirits are made, served, and enjoyed.

SPECIALIZATIONS WE USED

Collaborative Vision & Planning

Brand Strategy

Digital Platform Strategy

Content Strategy

Project Management

User Experience/User Interface Design

Responsive Websites

Ecommerce

Digital Brand Guidelines

Prototyping

Consumer Research

A/B testing

Competitive Analysis

Heuristic Evaluation

Data Science & Analytics

Photography

Brand Tone and Voice Copy

Prototypes

High Fidelity Wireframes

Detailed Design Comps

Digital Style Guides

UX Requirements

Brand Governance

The first thing we did was to work with the key stakeholder at O’Neill to put together a basic sitemap and directional deck. We also gathered all photography and video clips they had available for content, ran a huge competitive analysis, conducted stakeholder interviews, and started an internal inspiration board.

Since the current site had a huge amount of information shown in a complex page structure, we worked with the owners to prioritize. This was the most important first step.

OPTION 1

OPTION 2

O’Neill chose Option 1 and that is the option they are currently building as we speak. Because we loved this project so much and because we couldn’t let Option 2 go unseen, we also wanted to showcase the runner-up.

We wanted to give some edge and sleekness to the brand, making it stand out visually from its competitors.

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